supporting judicial climate action

Welcome to the Center for Climate Crime Analysis

The judicial branch of government and law enforcement are a critical, but often overlooked, component of the global response to the climate crisis. In democratic societies, judicial proceedings - unlike political and legislative processes - are independent and impartial. The decision-making of judges and prosecutors is free from the pressures of short term political gain or special interests' lobbies, and focusses on justice and the rule of law. At the same time, judgments are legally binding and must be enforced. This allows judges to address long-term challenges, such as climate change, whose most sever impacts will only be felt by the next generations.

The Center for Climate Crime Analysis (CCCA) is a non-profit organization of prosecutors and law enforcement professionals designed to support and scale up judicial climate action worldwide at the national and international level. CCCA is unique, both in its mandate and methodology.

CCCA pursues an innovative approach, namely the Law Enforcement Support Model: It uses its law enforcement expertise to direct and coordinate other organizations and private citizens in their efforts to generate, preserve and collect information concerning criminal or otherwise illegal activities relevant to climate change. Through its directions, CCCA ensures that information collected by others is relevant, as complete as possible, and admissible and probative in legal proceedings. It also helps preserve relevant information that would otherwise be lost.

CCCA then conducts legal and forensic analysis of information and shares concrete case files with the competent national authorities for criminal prosecution, or for regulatory or administrative enforcement. It also shares information with advocacy groups in support of climate litigation under other legal statutes. This way, law enforcement authorities and advocacy groups benefit from high quality information and analysis that would otherwise be unavailable to them or that would only be available at a substantial financial cost.

CCCA does not replicate the work of other organizations, but it is the missing link between existing investigative or advocacy NGOs and the judicial branch of government and law enforcement authorities.

All forms of legal climate action must be conducted on the basis of a strong factual and evidentiary basis, which CCCA can provide. Having collected and analysed the relevant information and evidence, CCCA choses the legal forum with the highest chances of success and the highest impact. It then triggers proceedings and litigation in that forum by strategically sharing its information and analysis with the relevant authorities and advocacy groups. This can lead to significant efficiency gains by law enforcement authorities and advocacy groups, and may result in scaling up judicial climate action. CCCA has been operative since 2017. To protect on-going investigations and proceedings, as well as its sources, CCCA does not reveal any details of concrete cases.